LAHORE: Chief Minister Punjab Maryam Nawaz Sharif addressed a conference of CEOs and Medical Superintendents (MSs), where she administered a pledge of zero corruption and public service, and announced a wide-ranging set of reforms to strengthen governance, accountability, and service delivery in public hospitals.
The Chief Minister approved the appointment of Monitoring and Evaluation Assistants in hospitals, the digitalization of health facilitation operations, and the posting of administrators and procurement officers. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have also been introduced to assess the performance of CEOs and MSs. A new Performance Evaluation Report (PER) system has been implemented to monitor doctors’ performance, while district and tehsil hospitals across Punjab have entered a paperless regime.
The CM directed on-call doctors to reach hospitals within 20 minutes and commended ministers, secretaries, and health teams for reducing maternal mortality rates. She reiterated her vision that no citizen of Punjab should have to travel to another city for treatment, stating that saving one life is equivalent to saving all humanity. She emphasized that CEOs and MSs are more critical than ministers and secretaries in ensuring policy implementation.
Maryam Nawaz Sharif said that public hospitals primarily serve poor and vulnerable patients and stressed the need to treat their care as a sacred trust. She warned that negligence by doctors or nurses could cost lives and expressed concern after seeing hospital staff using mobile phones during duty hours.
Emergency wards have been linked with Safe City cameras to ensure oversight, and strict restrictions have been imposed on the use of mobile phones by doctors during duty hours, she said and noted that Punjab’s health budget has increased significantly from Rs399 billion to Rs630 billion. She added that resources must translate into visible improvements for patients. She said over 1,500 doctors have joined public hospitals, and Rs22 billion in previous dues have been cleared to maintain uninterrupted medicine supplies.
She directed hospital administrations to ensure availability of medicines, functional equipment, proper cleanliness, and improved patient management systems, including color-coded triage bays. Pharmaceutical representatives will not be allowed inside hospitals, and vigilance teams are actively monitoring facilities across districts.
Maryam Nawaz Sharif concluded by stressing that hospital leadership positions are not privileges but a public trust, urging officials to remain among patients to better understand their suffering and ensure meaningful improvements in healthcare delivery.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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